The AnimeUSA con this past weekend was a lot of fun, even though the folks organizing it waited until the week before to announce the full schedule. They also abandoned the Guidebook app in favor of something I could not get to work on my iPad or iPod Touch, any of my Android tablets including my Nook (which will actually run the 3D graphical app for Second Life), or any of my computers. Because of some strange formatting that apparently required software to display it properly that I didn’t have, the PDF version of the schedule only allowed you to see what was scheduled on Thursday. I ended up having to track down the printer-friendly version of the schedule on their web site, print it out, and mark the things I wanted to attend with a Sharpie; how 20th century! It didn’t really matter, since the people who were doing all the different parts of the program worked their butts off to make sure their portion was done properly. Bottom line, a good time was had by all, thanks to the individual contributors and the wonderful attitude all the attendees carried with them everywhere they went. This matches the original concept for the event; BY Otaku, FOR Otaku. Most of the professional level guests were from Japan or the Left Coast companies who bring their Anime/Manga products our way. I loved the panels the Voice Actors put on, with the Inside The Voice Actors Studio segment perhaps being my favorite. The Cosplayers were fully represented and owned the hallways, and the panels I managed to attend were excellent, both Fan and Pro run.
I tried to take notes at the various panels, but was usually too busy enjoying them to remember to do so. Perhaps I can remember enough about some of them to post a few notes here. There was so much going on that most hours I had to pick between 3 to 6 things I wanted to attend that were scheduled at the same time. For those wondering, that is me in the picture taken at the con, holding up the sign for next year’s event, and wearing my Planet Tokyo shirt. Note that the shirt does not refer to the Puffy AmiYumi song, but to the radio show by Willow Leafstorm on Krypton Radio, Sci-Fi for your Wi-Fi.
